OpenAI’s president does “all the things,” except answer a question

The strongest witness so far in Elon Musk’s case against OpenAI has been Greg Brockman’s journal. Brockman himself is running in second place.

Brockman was called to the stand in an unusual manner – first cross-examined, then directly examined – and he had some of the serious energy of a high school debate club. There was a lot of “I wouldn’t portray it that way,” “I wouldn’t say it that way,” and “It sounds like something I wrote. Can I see it in context?” When Musk’s attorney, Steven Molloy, read some of the evidence aloud, Brockman would pedantically correct any word he left out, even if it was “a” or “the.” When asked if Microsoft’s $10 billion investment in OpenAI was the largest financial event, Brockman replied that it was only a $10 billion investment. come But.

I’ve said before that if you can define the term “epistemology”, you should not have to testify in your own defense. So the lawyer didn’t say a word – is it really worth taking the jury’s time to tell us all this? Avoid becoming the smartest boy in the world for your parents.

That would have been bad enough. But the journal entries – a series of text files from his computer – were worse, because they were very clear about Brockman’s greed and opportunism, at least around 2017. Here’s one: “Although another realization from this is that it would be wrong to steal a non-profit from him. Converting to a B-Corp without him would be quite morally bankrupt. And he’s not really that stupid.” Here’s another: “Maybe we should pursue profit only. It feels too good for us to make money.” It also adds: “Can’t say we’re committed to nonprofits. Don’t want to say we’re committed. That’s a lie if three months later we’re doing a B-Corp.”

“It would be wrong to steal a nonprofit from him” is very close to Musk’s “steal a charity” line, I noticed.

We haven’t finished the direct examination yet, so I’m sure we’ll hear some clarification about the events that inspired these entries. But between Brockman’s attitude toward the cross and the journal entries, I don’t think I’d trust him to keep an eye on my bag when I use the restroom.

Musk’s team is trying to paint Brockman as greedy, which I buy. The infamous “What will take me to $1 billion?” Made an appearance from Brockman’s magazine. We established that Brockman’s share in OpenAI’s profits was approximately $30 billion. Molo asked Brockman why he did not donate $29 billion to the non-profit arm of OpenAI if $1 billion was enough for him.

Brockman could have said something like, “If I sold all my stake at once, OpenAI would fetch much less than $39 billion, because that’s how supply and demand works.” He might have said something like, “For me to be in the game is an important signal to other investors.” Or maybe, “This is just my net worth on paper. It’s not real.”

He didn’t do anything like that. Brockman responded with nonsense about how much the nonprofit’s stake was worth to the for-profit. Molo said that this did not answer his question and he asked again. We went back and forth on this for a long time; The jury’s heads were moving from side to side as if they were watching a tennis match. Brockman never answered this question.

No detail was too small to be debated. Molo asked if purple boxes were something OpenAI typically uses to draw attention to something important, and Brockman said no. Then we all read in the document that OpenAI typically uses them in employee and investor paperwork to highlight important things. In my notes I wrote, “Why are we fighting about the purple box?”

Mollo delivered another major blow by revealing OpenAI’s various deals with companies in which Brockman has a stake: Cerebras, CoreWave, Stripe and Helion Energy. Given the sheer number of companies using Stripe, its OpenAI deal seems difficult — but OpenAI commitments seriously matter to both Cerebra and CoreWave.

Brockman also has a direct financial connection to Altman as he was offered a compensation package when he started OpenAI. He owns a 1 percent stake in the Altman family office, which Brockman received in exchange for Y Combinator stock because “we ran out of Y Combinator stock to do other things.” [employees’] Offer.” In a 2017 email, Musk’s bodyman, Jared Birchall, writes to Musk that Altman had disclosed it to him, and Musk forwarded the Birchall email to Brockman with a “??”. Musk apparently did not know about the deal and had to explain it to Brockman.

I’m considering the various ways Brockman made himself unbelievable because it’s fun to watch powerful people squirm. But it also influenced my view of his direct testimony, which began later. Brockman began by telling a story of OpenAI’s founding that sounds like it was tailor-made for thousands of podcasts and keynote speeches. When asked what he did as president of OpenAI, he replied, “I do all the things.” If we weren’t in the courtroom I would have screamed. Millennial terminology is a great tragedy.

In this statement, OpenAI was the idea of ​​Brockman and Sam Altman. Upon leaving Stripe, Brockman told Altman of his interest in AI (“I’m thinking about working on AI,” to which Altman bluntly replied, “I’m thinking about working on AI, too.”). They kept in touch. The original idea was reportedly to have a Y Combinator research arm, which Musk rejected because he did not want to be associated with Y Combinator.

Imagine cozy dinners, a trip to Napa (“Our van was stuck in traffic for an hour and a half and no one noticed” because the conversation was so good), a collection of AI conferences. Yes expert! It was so neat-o! Everyone got along so well and had so much creative energy! We got to hear a very long story from Ilya Sutskever thinking about leaving Google, and then got a photo taken by Brockman of the first day of OpenAI, with everyone working from their apartments. (In photo: Altman. Missing: Musk.) I think you get my point; I definitely got Brockman. This was the child of Altman and Brockman. It wasn’t until Musk had a closing call with Altman and Brockman’s team that he told them he wanted to be more involved.

Musk appeared in the testimony as a distant and sometimes menacing figure. At a dinner, he asked whether Google’s Dennis Hassabis was bad. In fact, Musk seemed “very consistent and stable” on Hassabis, and never mentioned Larry Page, who Musk said was the reason OpenAI came into existence. In text messages sent from Sutskever to Brockman, Sutskever wrote, “Elon could spend half a day a week with us. I imagined what it would be like and I am concerned that our work environment might become too stressful.”

Sutskever was right to be concerned; Musk is famously tough. I guess we’ll hear more about it tomorrow. But as things stand so far, the jury will have to decide who she trusts more of the two untrustworthy men. I don’t envy their work.